Archives by Tag 'Bob Knight'

See how you can sign up for the chance to see some of the best basketball coaches in the world. Some of the featured clinicians are: BOB KNIGHT, ROY WILLIAMS, SHAKA SMART, BOB HUGGINS, BILL CARTWRIGHT, & ALAN STEIN! Listen to the video by BballCoachThom about more detail on each of the 2013 Fall Nike Championship Basketball Clinics:

In our latest team development feature, Hall of Fame basketball coach Bob Knight guides you through a pair of up-tempo drills that are vital towards building mental toughness. Coach Knight has incorporated these same exact drills with his programs throughout his career, from Indiana through Texas Tech.

11-Man Break

This highly-engaging rapid-fire drill starts with two defensive players in the paint, one high and one low. Meanwhile, two more defensive guys will set up on the opposite end of the court in the paint, one high and one low as well. Next, three offensive guys begin at midcourt attacking one end of the floor and the middle player has the ball. Finally, get one guy at each hash mark along the sides of the sideline (on both ends) for a total of four players.

“11-Man Break” begins with the 3-on-2 situation at one end. All five guys should go for the rebound. Whoever gets the rebound then joins up with the two nearest sideline hash mark guys to form a three-person unit. From here, they go 3-on-2 in the other direction. The drill continues like this back and forth for a set period of time.

2 Ball Shooting

“2 Ball Shooting” is a great drill you can implement across the lane, foul line, across the circle, on either side of the hoop, or wherever you’d like really. In other words, you can move the shooter wherever you want them to shoot on that particular day of practice. If you have a gym with six baskets, you can get 12 guys working at one time. When you say, “Change”, the players should switch up and immediately get back into it. 2 Ball Shooting is a tremendous drill for shooting stamina and for getting tougher even if you’re tired.

One player should be the rebounder the entire time while working with the shooter (and two basketballs). Be sure to shoot from different spots on the floor. You can even implement a fake before each shot. The shooter should always be on the move. Look to go for one minute before switching up.

Coaching Tips: Step into each shot. Always get set and don’t shoot out of balance.

By becoming proficient at help-side defense, your team will be well on its way towards playing dominant man-to-man defense. In this week’s team concepts feature, follow along with legendary basketball coach Bob Knight as he breaks down help-side defense in a half-court setting.

Help-Side Defense

When it comes to help-side defense, it’s important to remember that there’s a line right up the middle of the floor that separates help-side and ball-side. For help-side defenders, you want to stay one step on your man’s side of the basket. Up top, players should be slightly open to the ball and with hands out in the passing lane and down. Meanwhile, in the post, play your man one step slightly open to the ball and one step on the man side of the bucket with the ball above the foul line extended.

When the ball is moved to from the top to a wing area (let’s say the left wing for this simulation), all players should be focused on the ball. Watch the clip below to see the players move now when the ball goes from ballside to helpside.

Watch as Hall of Fame basketball coach Bob Knight reveals how you can improve your man-to-man offense by eliminating the dribble in practices. Incorporate this practice technique today and watch your squad improve its ability to pass, cut, screen, and play with confidence.

Drill Overview

According to Coach Knight, there’s nothing better for developing cutting, screening, and spacing than eliminating the dribble. For this drill, get your team in a 5-on-5 set-up. Have your offense start in a “high” offense to begin. In other words, get your post man down on the block but have everyone else above the foul line extended high.

Once the offense crosses midcourt, there will be no dribbling. Let’s see if we can get a basket on just passing and cutting. After all, that’s what the guts of our offense is.

Every day, you should work without the dribble. The dribble is effective when we want to change position and drive to the bucket. However, you don’t want the dribble used because your team doesn’t have anything else to do. Essentially, you want your team to be able to play offense against man-to-man defense with confidence that they don’t ever have to put the ball on the floor.

Also, if the defense makes a mistake, get that corrected. That’s just as important with our team as the offense. It could be a missed blockout, poor positioning, not setting up a cut, etc. Coaches should simply take the player out and talk about the mistake on the sideline to make sure he/she corrects it. Then the drill can continue seamlessly. This is also a great role for assistant coaches. Head coaches can’t see everything out there, and this strategy is key to getting mistakes corrected.

Man-to-Man Defense

When it comes to defense, the last line of resistance is the three-point line or top of the key. This is as far back as we can go with our defensive pickup. So how far out exactly do we want to go? Well, you can pick up from here to midcourt.

The deciding factor on where exactly to pick up is: How quick are we as opposed to how quick are they? If we are quicker, look to extend your pickup. However, the further you extend the pickup, the more you are opening yourself up to a lot of easy scores against you. Coach Knight is not a fan of full-court pickup, especially if you don’t have the same quickness that the offense has.

For this drill, the defense will play straight man-to-man defense with no switching. When the ball handler crosses midcourt, there should be no more dribbling. From here, it’s the rest of the team’s job to get open, screen, cut, and maintain balance.

Live Simulations

Follow the 5-on-5 action as Coach Knight provides insights and strategies for each simulation. Remember, it’s critical on offense to get good screens and have players cutting to the bucket and cutting to the ball. See what’s there and then react.